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Friday, April 30, 2010

If I ever write a novel about three generations of an Indian family ripped asunder, thrown together and ripped asunder again by love, lust, freedom struggle/partition, brain drain, intercaste marriage, interracial marriage, no marriage, yes marriage, sometimes marriage, greed and other stuff, I will name this novel All These Bitches Is My Sons. The cover of this novel will have a mango that has mehndi hands and inside these mehndi hands will be a large Indian wedding with Indian food and Indian music and Indian people speaking Indian and then there will be a big Indian fight while a big Indian monsoon breaks over their Indian heads. All of this will be on the cover. All these bitches is my sons.

I have a short story in the new issue of Versal, which is a literary magazine based in Amsterdam. Some people associate Amsterdam with free weed and believe it is just given away, freely and happily on those high and beautiful streets. Others associate Amsterdam with free sex where again, it is just being given away and all you have to do is extend your hand and say yes, I want that. I knew one person who, for reasons best known to herself, kept associating Amsterdam with hamsters. Anyway, if you pre-order a copy of Versal 8 now, you’ll get free shipping. Not many people will do that for us people who live inside countries that are not often associated with English literary magazines.

Also, M.I.A has a new video. You may say, why are you pimping this, you are not M.I.A. This is so true.

ZOMG! Department

ZOMG! the The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction - Volume 2 has revealed itself to this world and the world is aghast and agape and worried that it might not be able to withstand the awesomeness! ZOMG! It hasn't blossomed in bookstores yet but you can order it online or if you're in Chennai you can head over to Madras Terrace House and buy a copy. If you can't do either of those things, wow sucks to be you.

The Junk Department

Oh you crazy, crazy manguys, doing chat roulette and getting flabbergasted by all those other guys out there who keep showing you their junk. That’s funny because it’s funny when a guy gets flashed by another guy, right? It’s like emasculating or something. Isn’t it a drag to be visually molested by some guy’s junk when you totally didn’t want to see his junk in the first place? It is my belief that unnecessary and uncalled for genitalia exhibitions by people who think their genitalia is worth exhibiting is kind of like stepping in poo.

That actually isn’t what I wanted to say.

I wanted to say that I learned two neat things recently and they are kind of connected and they both kind of come from the same place. So let’s say that you want to insult a group of women. This is something that both men and women want to do sometimes. Let’s say that you insult these women by calling them lesbian shitasses. Many people have a vague idea that words like ‘lesbian’ should not be used as an insult but they are not exactly sure WHY. The good news is that it is totes ok to do this if you later inform everyone that you are friends with nice lesbians. It is important to be firm on the fact that you are only friends with nice lesbians, which is like the important distinction white people of yesteryear (and sometimes of today) make about being friends with only the nice, noble colored savages instead of bad colored savages like myself. This line of thinking can be extended to making racist comments as well, as long as you make it clear that you once sat beside a nice colored person that one time. It can be helpful to keep a photograph of this incident handy so that you have proof of your privilege.

So from whence did all these worthy wells of knowledge spring? From Scott Baio. It feels weird to even type that. How many of us who crushed on Charles in Charge are now looking at Scott Baio and thinking oh my God, am I on drugs? Is he on drugs? Is everything on drugs? How did Charles in Charge go from being Charles in Charge to ScottBaioRuinsEverything?

T-Shirts Are Obscene and Against Indian Culture Except When A Man Wears Them And Then It’s Ok Department

Everyone on Youtube is making t-shirts. Even the Gingers Have Souls! kid is selling t-shirts. So it is clear that the reason why I am not selling t-shirts is because I am not on Youtube. If I was though, I would make ones with the following lines on them.

White Supremacists Are Just Like You And Me. Well Maybe Not Like You But They Are Like Me Because I Am A White Supremacist.

Women Writers Are Just Like You And Me Except Sometimes They Write Really Well And That Makes Them Like Men Which Also Makes Them Gay.

Gingers Are Just Like You And Me Except They Have Souls.

Colored Writers Are Just Like You And Me Except When They Don’t Write Like White People. When They Don’t Write Like White People They Are Ethnic, Ghetto, Incomprehensible Or Terrorists. Sometimes They Are EthnicGhettoIncomprehensibleTerrorists.

Jhumpa Lahiri Is Just Like You And Me Except She Is Not Related To Bappi Lahiri. Or Maybe She Is.

Mind-Blowing Writing Is Just Like Mind-Blowing Writing Except Sometimes In Some Places People Think It’s Not So Mind-Blowing But Those People Are Obviously Poopoo Heads So Whatever.

Everyone Is Just Like You And Me Except They Are All Unique And Different.

To add some ethnic authenticity to the mix, I thought I would use a local Tamil phrase I hear a lot, which says an unmarried woman is a ‘vazhaathu ponnu’. Or sloppily translated, a girl who hasn’t lived. At first I thought this was a really mean thing to say. Then I thought it was kind of cool, if you think of it as being in a an undead state of suspended animation. Being an equal opportunity person, I make t-shirt to say

Unmarried People Are Just Like You And Me Except They Haven’t Lived Which Means They Are Undead, Sparkly, Hot And Dangerous.

S- Do these skills involve crying? Do you threaten to blow your nose on them if they don’t give you the laptop for 23 paisa?

K- Chee.

S- You throw a tantrum. You jump up and down and say ‘Give me the laptop for 23 paisa! Give me give me give me!’

K- I do have a technique, if that’s what you want to know.

S- I do want to know. I want to know how you bring a laptop price down from several thousands of rupees to 23 paisa.

K- First I laugh in the dealer’s face when he quotes his price. I go HAHAHAHA! like the villain in a Tamil movie just before he rapes someone. When I laugh, it says to the dealer ‘That price is absurd’ and it also says ‘You better rethink that price or I will END you!!!’

S- I will end you? What are you, some kind of deadly punctuation mark?

K- Then I unleash my I Will End You !!! Look Of Extreme Fear on the dealer.

S- Is that where your mouth hangs open and it looks like you’re going to sneeze?

K- HAHAHAHA!

S- Iyo.

K- This is the look that is so powerful that if I wear sunglasses, I can be arrested for concealing dangerous weapons.

S- HAHAHAHA!

K- Why you are laughing?

S- Sorry.

K- I once gave an old woman this look by accident and she had a heart attack. S- I have seen you give that look to people. It looks like you’ve fallen asleep with your mouth open.

K- With this look, I can make an auto driver take me round and round the city twice with one unnecessary drop at Guduvancheri. Guess how much I will pay. Guess guess.

S- No.

K- Two rupees.

S- I can go round and round the city four times with two unnecessary trips to Neelankarai and one unnecessary drop at Guduvancheri for one rupee.

K- I bought a Blackberry for 50 paisa and I get everything on it for free all the time forever.

S- I found a Blackberry on the road that has everything on it for free all the time forever.

K- My dental work picks up WiFi signals so every time I touch something, it becomes internet-enabled. Like if I touch a toaster. Or a plastic spoon. Or a fish.

S- You can create internet-enabled fish.

K- Did I just go too far and lose this game?

S- You were already losing at the 23 paisa laptop.

K- But I can really get you that though. Absolute best price, pucca quality. Really.

*

an edited version of this appeared in The New Indian Express Zeitgeist Supplement, Multiverse, Conversations, April 14, 2010

Friday, April 16, 2010

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fireballs in the sky and unknown objects from other galaxies sending out mysterious radio waves, possibly because they want to get into our planet’s pants. It is so clear that the world as we know it will probably end by next week. So now is the perfect time to take out those stories that are not working in one gender and make them into one another gender so those one another people will love and accept you. What is this gender? Well what I can say is that I watched this "interview" that Weird Al Yankovic did with Eminem and forgot what the word ‘genre’ meant. Then I got it mixed up with the word ‘gender’. Then I decided they mean the same thing. Some bad people write stories which are of unstable genders, which means they are neither here nor there, which makes them androgynous. Thankfully, with a little tweaking, these genderless stories can be translated into one another gender. Below is piece of “literary” microfiction which means it is genderlessly androgynous.

He arrives at your house unexpectedly. Sometimes you let him in and you let him sit down. Sometimes you send him away, saying you’re sick or your mother is coming or your mother is already here. He calls when he’s drunk and tells you how much he likes to fuck. You think of him jerking off into handkerchiefs while he looks at pixilated pictures of women with no pubic hair. You have a lot of porn, you ask and he says oh yeah. You’re into that girl-on-girl stuff, you ask and he says oh yeah. When your train is 4 hours late, he waits, spending the time kicking empty paper cups onto the railway tracks. Sometimes he looks up and tries to see the night sky through the holes in the station roof. When he drops you home, you say thank you and hug him. He just stands there like you’re already gone.

Let’s look at some ways how we can make this examplemicro moar gendered and better.

Magic Realism/Fantasy/SciFi/Weird Gendering

Many people find these terms confusing and complex. To me, they all mean dragons. So turning the examplemicro into a piece of firmly-gendered magic realism/fantasy/scifi/weird fiction means you can do like this.

He arrives at your house on a dragon. Sometimes you let him in but you make him leave the dragon outside because dragons are big motherfuckers. Sometimes you send him away and he cries so much he pulls his eyeballs out and sends them to you by courier because he loves you like a heartfuck. When he comes back for his eyes which he needs and which you keep for him in your freezer, you don’t let him or the dragon in because you say you’re sick or your mother is coming or your mother is already here. But you give him his eyes in a paper bag. He calls when he’s drunk and tells you how much he likes to fuck dragons. You think of him jerking off into handkerchiefs while he looks at pixilated pictures of hairless dragon-parts. You have a lot of dragon porn, you ask and he says oh yeah. He also says he has a time machine but you don’t believe him and you don’t understand what that has to do with dragons anyway. When your train is 4 hours late, he waits in the sky, killing birds and setting planes on fire with his dragon who resents this because it is a pacifist dragon. When he drops you home, you say thank you and hug him. He says, you’re welcome and the dragon just stands there but you can tell it wants to burn your house down even though it is allegedly a pacifist dragon but you can tell that it is full of lies and violence and fire.

EdgyEnExperimental Gendering

I believe at one time, this gender was actually three separate words, namely Edgy And Experimental. For some reason, they became popular modes of describing many different kinds of writing, thus becoming a gender unto itself. The examplemicro can be EdgyEnExperimental gendered like this.

He arrives at your house unexpectedly unexpectedly unexpectedly unexpectedly unexpectedly-

I expect no more.

I expectorate.

I rate what you expectorate, you fulsome buxom bastard.

Sometimes you let him in…………………………….but sometimes it’s

I’m sick, motherfucker.

My mother is here, motherfucker.

He calls when he’s drunk. Don’t say you love me, you say and he says

No.

I just wanted to tell you how much I like to fuck.

Ok.

Ok then.

Pixilated pictures of hairless catsHairless cats are scary

My train is 4 hours late but he’ll wait

He’ll wait for years, his shoes rooting deep into the concrete, the street piling up around him like squirrel aids his heart breaking open and collecting paper cups.

And shit like that,

Minimalist Gendering

I read on teh internetz that this gender involves getting to the core of the piece, bringing that up front and cutting out everything else. In conclusion, the examplemicro can be minimalzed and gendered like this.

He porn.

Indian English Gendering

A very hard gender to master. Not recommended unless you are Nissim Ezekiel, which you aren’t because he’s dead. Still, we can try, no? Yes.

He is arriving to yours one number house with no one ahead telling also. You can allow him to bring his good self into the open door. You can also allow him to take a kind seat also. You can also tell him the falsehoods to prevent his entry through the open door. What are these falsehoods? We can enumerate the same for ease of understanding. You can tell like you are suffering from fever and dysentery so you are unable to allow him to bring his good self into the open door or to take the kind seat. You can also tell yours aged relations like so much respected mother is taking a seat in the households so is it correct for the gents to enter? It is very much not so. He may feel so much distressed and ruination in the heart. Because there is no respite for this common man he may turn to hot drinks. In such states of intoxications, he may also give you tinkle from publicSTD booth and even though you are ladies, he may share with you informations like he is enjoying having personal relationships fully sexsex with female persons. Even though you are ladies, you may have thoughts of him doing somewhat things with his kerchief involving his matrimonial areas. Maybe he is seeing some blue film pictures also which are so degrading for the women who are like mother goddess. You can question his blue film habits and because he is having hot drinks, he is saying so many rubbish things to you even though you are ladies. Yet even though he is a rascal, he is like a child having moustache. He has a face that is pouring like milk. When you are taking day express, he will stay in the unhygiene conditions of the railway stations which are sometimes very worst. He will await your one number arrival because you are ladies traveling single. Because you are a very forward public girl, maybe it is your habit to hug him like cousin-brother which basically is part of the Western culture. Because he is pucca Indian man, he will not behave in such a forward public manner, especially with ladies so he will stand there simply like you are out of station.

K- If something ever did happen at the Gee Oh, it would initiate a backward time-loop hiccupsneeze that would cause the universe to swallow itself.

S- Ew.

K- This is why nothing ever happens there. It is holding the universe together.
S- What games did you play today? Did you play Run Up And Down And Up And Down The Building Signature Hunt?

K- No, that was last time. And a very invigorating game it was too because one person absolutely refused to sign anything unless I bought them samosa and tea, sang their personal top ten hits of MGR while standing on one leg and promised to bring them four bottles of authentic Andhra mango pickle.

S- So what did you play today?

K- First we played Repeat After Me Because You Are Stupid.

S- I’ve never played that!

K- It’s definitely one of the Old Skool games. The esteemed Gee Oh Official yawns at your kazillion papers. Then he says ‘You need to get attestation from two freshwater ducks that are on their way to Latvia.’
S- Then?

K- Then he looks at you and says very slowly, ‘You need to get? Come on, tell me?’

S- Oh! It’s like filling in the blanks!
K- It really does wonders for your self-esteem to be an adult and sit there while another adult talks to you like you are a three-year old that eats glue.
S- It is a very long game?
K- It really is. We were playing for about an hour before we finally got to ‘Two freshwater ducks that are on their way to? Come on come on say me? Lat-vi-a. Very good.’

S- You played that the whole day?

K- No, after that we had a very dramatic session of You Don’t Have A Pen?!

S- That game scares me. So much drama.

K- I think some of our most powerful dramatic actors work in the Gee Oh and they only display their full artistic prowess when they find out you don’t have a pen. This one was just like Sivaji, very powerful emoting.

S- These are the people who can win us Oscars!

K- He kept saying, ‘You are an educated person? You don’t have a pen?’ Then the burden of this became too much for him so he started telling this to everyone who passed by. Then it turned into an interactive theater piece.

S- Wow, what was that like?
K- Half the people said I didn’t have a pen because I was arrogant and the other half said it was because my family was arrogant. I didn’t realize there was such a strong connection between arrogance and not having a pen.

S- There is only one way for you to beat this whole Gee Oh business for good.

K- And that is?
S- Join those freshwater ducks that are going to Latvia.

K- I don’t want to go to Latvia. I’m proud to be an Indian.

S- Then you’ll probably be going to the Gee Oh for the rest of your life.

K- I’m so ready! Who’s the Gee Oh Gee? Yeah you know me! Who’s the-

S- No need. Once is enough.

*

an edited version of this appeared in The New Indian Express Zeitgeist Supplement, Multiverse, Conversations, April 10, 2010

Friday, April 2, 2010

It’s that time of year again, where we are overwhelmed and assaulted with prickly heat and power cuts and murderous jealous rage at people who have air conditioners while we neatly disregard the fact that at least we are not outside dying of heatstroke. Just a reminder to my Injun peeps to drink lots of water because when there is no water and you are dying of dehydration, at least you can find comfort in the fact that you drank as much water as you could when there was water to drink.

I have been sifting through the mammoth happening known as RaceFail09. It has a lot of AbsoluteEpicFacePalm Phail moments but it also has moments of very sharp and very bright brilliance. One of which is deepa d’s post I Didn’t Dream of Dragons. Among many awesome things she says (and there are a lot), she says this-

"Asking an author to write the Other with respect and assuming it to be sufficient, is like telling a person that being polite to everyone is sufficient in their goal of being an anti-racist ally. This is crap. Your definition of individuality, just like your definition of politeness is culture-specific. And just like I do not want to see yet another Indian princess or lascar stereotype, I do not want to see a White American with brown skin and kohl and an elephant sidekick. I distrust universalising statements proclaiming our inherent mutual humanity because they are uni-directional—they do not make everyone more like me, they make everyone more like you. And I do not want that. White people decrying their race and culture baffles me, because it is a lie. Your alienation from your own mainstream does not equate with your fundamental similarity to my differences with your culture. Even when we feel or are called 'White' or 'Western', we cannot shrug off our identity; we become the vanguard of its complexity. And we are far, far more immersed in your culture, than most of you could ever be in ours. What I resent is the implication of accessibility. That it is as easy to understand people of different ethnicities and cultures as it is to understand the diverse experiences within the identities you share with people. Yes, writing about Indian-Americans or Korean-Canadians or Sengalese-Britishers implies a certain shared national experience. But hyphenated identities are not the only manifestations of a culture, and as someone who identifies as Indian, I want to say--No. It is not that easy to understand me, or my experience, or to accurately represent it. You don't see Native Americans writers going around claiming familiarity with Australian aboriginals on the basis of some shared philosophies, or Chinua Achebe writing about Afro-Caribbeans like an extension of his own world. ”

Some of the comments on the post are really good too so maybe you can read the whole thing but only if you want to.

What The Dickens Department

Dear Charles Dickens,

I know this missive must pain you greatly because you don’t like Indians. At least you didn’t when you were alive. Maybe you feel differently now that you are dead. I have to say your racism kind of bummed me out because I enjoy your writing. Can I just say that Indians Are Just Like You And Me Except That We Are Indian? I guess that doesn’t make a difference to you, not because you are racist but because you are dead.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I couldn’t help but notice how much your novels are like Tamil movies. I guess this is something you don’t want to hear and maybe it is making you very angry also. So in the spirit of English people who culturally like to drink tea and have duels, let’s have a competition to see which is better. Starting with enumeration of the similarities in chronological and consecutive numerations followed by a consensus of who wins.

1. You have boring virtuous men and women. So do we but at least our boring virtuous men and women dance, so they are not as boring as yours. So we win this one.

2. You have bad people who are often more interesting than the good people and just in case we don’t get the fact that they are bad, you give them names like Smallweed and Barnacle. I remember watching a Tamil movie where the bad guy’s name was Underwear Gounder. Maybe that’s not a good example. This movie I think also had Napoleon and Kasthuri in it and I remember this one girl who was watching it came in feeling a little headachy and by the time the movie was over, she had full-blown viral fever. So we win this one too because I don’t think any of your novels were powerful enough to give anyone viral fever.

3. Your novels are having social message. Tamil movies also have social messages but we do this through dance and maybe sometimes our social messages get a little weird. So we win again and you lose again.

4. By the end of yours novels and ours movies, the bad are suitably rehabilitated or punished (though in our movies they are usually beaten to death but whatever, they totally deserved it), mens and womens are appropriately falling in the lous and married to a member of the opposite sex and all are living so happily ever in the after. Of course we do most of this through dance and we usually have at least one massive wedding. I’m afraid your weddings are just really sad compared to our weddings and also you are not dancing also. So we win this too and we feel sorry for you because you don’t know how to have a good time.

5. I look back on your ‘heroes’ and I see a good but faceless man who is poor at some point and wears top hats. I look at our heroes and I see Rajinikanth. We get eleventyhundred points for that because you will never, ever, EVER have a hero like Rajini. EVER.

So I guess what I’m saying is that even though your novels and our Tamil movies may be similar, Tamil movies are way more awesomer because we do almost everything through dance and we have Rajini and you don’t. So we win. Which I guess is just one more reason for you to hate on us, you racist hater.

(disclaimer- the What The Dickens Department is not meant to belittle, insult or disrespect Charles Dickens, England or English people who culturally drink tea and fight duels. As a precaution against any backlash or hurt sentiments this may have incurred, please note that the author of this post has already been sent to racism jail.)

About Me

Kuzhali Manickavel is the author of the short story collections 'Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings' and 'Things We Found During the Autopsy', both available from Blaft Publications. She also has an email id and it goes like kuzhali (dot) ehm (at) gmail (dot) com